


out of her sphere

by clarityhiding



Series: Team RedBird [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), DCU, DCU (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, New 52, Tim's not a character who actually appears so much as he is a state of mind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-06
Updated: 2015-09-06
Packaged: 2018-04-19 07:11:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4737377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clarityhiding/pseuds/clarityhiding
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something is seriously wrong with the world. Pru woke up this morning in a strange bed with a dead man. She still has a full head of hair and she's apparently in Prague on a job she remembers completing years ago. Still, when she checks her phone, it claims the year's 2011 and the date's what it should be. So at least she knows it's not time travel.</p>
<p>Probably.</p>
<p>(I.e., the fic where Pru wakes up in the new 52 and can’t find her bird.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	out of her sphere

She wakes up too hot, which is odd because when she went to sleep it was in a drafty, third-rate Chilean motel room in the middle of a particularly bitter autumn. Things get even odder when, while tossing off the covers, her hand hits someone, eliciting a yelp. Sure, Tierra del Fuego could be experiencing a sudden and unexpected heatwave, but she _knows_ she went to bed alone last night.

Training kicks in and she acts on automatic, one hand reaching for the gun she always keeps under her pillow while she shoves her hair out of her eyes with the other. Her sleep-fogged mind stalls on that for a moment—something about it feels wrong, but she isn't awake enough to think of what or why—but now isn't the time to let herself get distracted by irrelevant details. Instead she rolls away from her bedmate and into a sitting position, briefly glancing about to catalogue her surroundings.

The man's waking up now. He sports tousled brown hair, which makes no sense—her current list of allies is ridiculously short in number, and those on it that she'd feel safe enough to fall asleep around even fewer. Lonnie's bald, and Red—

All her thoughts stutter to a stop when the man turns his head in her direction, revealing a familiar face.

"What the hell? Every fucking time—see if I let you crash in my bed again, you freak," he growls in a voice she can't be hearing.

She can't stop staring at him, staring at sleepy-eyed Owens who's sitting up now, completely oblivious to the fact that he can't possibly be there. Can't possibly be speaking. Breathing.

A noise from the other side of the room has her whirling about and—

No.

No, this can't be happening.

"Pru? You okay? Christ, you look like you've seen a ghost," Z says, face and voice practically dripping with concern and, just.

_What._

* * *

It was after the Caribbean job that Pru started shaving her head. She'd been a fresh-faced kid, one that Z had picked up less than a month before. A scrawny little mumbley-teen, her bark still worse than her bite.

That job was the first one Z'd let her tag along on, and it'd gone south fast. Someone wasn't where they were supposed to be, or the timing was off, or the target was more paranoid than they'd planned for, or something. In any case, the whole thing had quite literally gone up in flames, leaving Z missing a bit of one of his toes and Pru with third-degree burns across her upper-back and a good part of the back of her skull. The League had first-rate medical services, could fix just about anything, but at the time Pru was too new and too untrained to bother investing any great effort. And while League medicine was quite good even at its most basic, hair still refused to grow where the scar tissue was. In the end, Pru found it was easier to shave it all off and get more in touch with her inner punk.

* * *

Something is seriously wrong with the world. Pru woke up this morning in a strange bed with a dead man. She still has a full head of hair (which shouldn't even be _possible_ ) and she's apparently in Prague on a job she remembers completing years ago. Still, when she checks her phone, it claims the year's still 2011 and the date's what it should be. So at least she knows it's not time travel.

Probably.

The job goes a lot smoother than it did the first time around—she's more experienced, plus she has the advantage of knowing what to expect and what to avoid. (There's the mild sense of guilt at going against Red's no-kill rule, but he's not here, she's maintaining cover, Owens is the one who makes the shot, and what Red doesn't know can't hurt him.) As a result, they finish up three days sooner and this time Pru doesn't come out of it with a four-inch-long gash on her bicep, which has to be a plus.

Going back to the Cradle with Z and Owens after is, well. Weird.

_Technically_ , Pru never left the League after Ra's al Ghul's last attempt at killing off Gotham's Bats and taking control of Wayne Enterprises. She just didn't carry out her assigned kill, provided Red with what info she could, and then chose to never report back in. After Red had resettled in the city, he'd asked her to look into the Council of Spiders and since Ra's had been making noise about her doing something like that anyway, it could be that the old bastard convinced himself she was acting on his orders, not Red's. Or maybe she just wasn't important enough for Ra's to care.

Everything in the Cradle feels _off_ , now. Pru isn't sure if it's because the whole world is wrong or if it's just that she's been gone so long. Every time she turns a corner she runs into people she remembers dying either on assignment or during the Council of Spiders shitstorm. As if she needed another reminder of why she left in the first place.

(Pru didn't know the term "redshirt" before meeting Tim Drake, but he definitely made sure she learned it since.)

The League never gave Pru the training she needs to escape her current situation (have to get out, get free before anyone notices something's off, something's different about her). All those skills are ones she picked up while following Red Robin across Europe and beyond, learning by watching. By listening. (If you make enough noise, no one suspects you might actually be paying attention.)

As great as it is to see Z and Owens again, Pru finds she doesn't trust them anymore. Some of it's because this all seems too good to be true (don't look a gift horse in the mouth, but only because you don't want to know if it's been dosed with arsenic). Most of it's because she's had the time to take a step back and get some perspective. Owens is still hot stuff when he's got a gun in his hands and his eye on a scope, but he's also impulsive and egotistical, both horrible traits for a sniper. Z is still the solid guy she remembers, the one who saved her when she was in a bad place and gave her the support and structure she needed then, but Z's also unfailingly loyal to Ra's and Pru, well. Isn't.

After a week spent trying to relax and appreciate this second chance, Pru gives up and starts poking around in the League's databases as much as she feels it's safe to, trying to pick apart what happened, or at least how things are different now. There are entries detailing assignments she doesn't remember completing, as well as the opposite—those she remembers that none of the records make any mention of.

The Caribbean job is there; it was completed without any incident. Somehow, that makes it even worse.

When she can't stand the constant itch between her shoulder blades any longer, Pru makes like she's headed home for a visit (ha, like she'll ever go _there_ again). At Heathrow she skips sideways, slipping between cracks to backtrack to Paris, she gets lost in crowds for a day or two before moving eastward to Milan, where she buys a razor and finally gets rid of the last of her hair. She'd cropped it short before leaving the Cradle, but even the close buzz was disconcerting enough that it kept catching her off-guard every time she caught a glimpse of her reflection. 

Pru flits back and forth across Eurasia for the better part of a month, gradually making her way eastward but taking care to never appear to be aiming for any place in particular.

When she reaches Hong Kong she does what she can to try and track down Black Bat. Cassandra Cain isn't someone Pru would normally go out of her way to cross paths with, but Red trusts his sister, and Pru trusts Red more than anyone else she's ever met.

There's no mention in the general buzz on the streets of Black Bat or anyone matching her description. Pru is far from capable when it comes to tracking down information digitally—there's a reason she was traveling all over the globe to get info on the Council of Spiders—but she's a good listener when she needs to be. So, while there's no noise about Black Bat in Hong Kong, there's plenty about Jason Todd, who apparently swept through the city like a whirlwind a few years back, obliterating most of the seven crime families. Messy, flashy work that lacked some of the covert subtlety Pru's always associated with Todd's work as Red Hood. One more difference for the list she's slowly building, trying to figure out what's gone wrong.

All in all, she loses half a week in Hong Kong, between following up false leads on shadowy rooftop ninja and gathering what intel she can on Todd. In Pru's experience, it pays to know as much as you can about any of the Bats and their close associates. Taking her leave of Hong Kong, she continues eastward in the same erratic fashion that's worked so far, crossing to Japan and beyond.

Eventually, after weeks of travel, she reaches her destination.

* * *

Gotham is the same as Pru remembers it—gloomy, gothic, infested with Bats.

Early in her stay in the city, Pru makes the mistake of snagging Batgirl one night as she swings her way across the city. Pru chalks up the blunder to complacency and an unwillingness to accept just how much things are different—she sees the costume, sees a flash of purple. In reality, she isn't complacent so much as anxious bordering on distraught. She's been in the city a week and she hasn't found any sign of Red Robin aside from some poorly-lit press photos that are at least six months out of date and a few rather cryptic remarks in the super-secret GCPD Bat files that she borrowed.

Approaching Batman himself is the last thing Pru wants to do (Talia's little terror-beast may be the current Robin, but Pru doubts the Bat is feeling the warm fuzzies when it comes to other assassins, even reformed ones), and she figures Batgirl probably has a better chance of predicting Red's movements than any of the rest of the Bats; they have that sort of relationship. Pru is sort-of hoping enough things are different that the whole my-boss-told-me-to-kill-you thing is no longer relevant.

Of course, none of that matters when Pru grabs a line and reels in the Bat on the end for questioning. "You're not Batgirl," Pru says, stunned into bluntness.

"Uh, pretty sure I am," the girl says. She's a chick and she's wearing a bat, but her hair's the wrong color and this isn't Cain, either. Red hair— _Gordon?_ What the fuck? "Why do you care?"

"It's. No, I mean—I need—" Pru needs to stop and regroup because if things are _this_ different, then it could be she's completely screwed. "The blonde one," Pru tries to explain. "The blonde Batgirl. She knows me." Maybe. Depending. Ugh, stupid _world_.

"Sorry, can't help you. I'm the only Batgirl around." Gordon slips free of Pru's grasp and flips out of reach. "Pretty irreplaceable, y'know. Not just some Robin. But, uh. Good luck with that, lady?" Pru doesn't even try to stop her as Gordon swings off into the darkness (probably a bad move on Pru's part—she'll have to watch out for the rest of the Bats, now; might be time to leave town).

Well, fuck. This isn't good news.

If Stephanie Brown isn't Batgirl, Pru has no idea how she's going to find Red. She tried finding him online weeks ago—tentatively, because you can never know who you're actually talking to when it comes to the internet, and Pru respects the reasons behind secret identities and all that. The most she could scare up was some idiot blogging about metahuman teens and something called N.O.W.H.E.R.E. under the Red Robin name, but that couldn't be Red, could it? He gets his hands dirty, he doesn't sit back and hope that if he shouts loud enough, someone will hear. Either way, Pru can't risk contacting the blogger, because again, internet. (And what would she say? "Hey, you probably don't know me, but you saved my life and got me out of a bad situation before something totally screwed up the world, let's be friends"? "You can totally trust me, the assassin gig is a thing of the past, and anyway I only ever tried to kill you the one time"?) She has no way of verifying his identity, since her hacking skills are basically crap. Boolean searches may be her bitches, but anything more complicated is beyond her. 

Really, with Red and Black Bat missing and Stephanie Brown not in the picture, Pru has no Bat-connections she can fall back on.

Or, well.

None she can really _trust_.

* * *

Before she threw her lot in with Red Robin, Pru made sure she knew what she was getting herself into. Sure, she had the basic rundown that Z passed on to her and Owens when they were originally given Timothy Drake as a target, but it clearly wasn't the complete dossier, considering that Red then proceeded to run circles around the three of them until they were forced to resort to dirty tricks just to get him to listen to them.

Pru may not have an eidetic memory or anything fancy like that, but she knows when to shut up and listen and she's pretty damned good at remembering crap that may prove crucial to her survival in the future. All her research told her that a big part of how Red did things went back to his teams, past and present. Since teamwork is Ra's great failing (teams have individuals, have _people_ , not fucking sacrificial redshirt ninja), Pru studied the shit out of Young Justice and the most recent incarnation of the Teen Titans. Which just goes to show that Miss Cowan back in primary school was right and knowing the material inside and out pays off, since you never know what you might be tested on.

It's not surprising that Jason Todd is way easier to track down than his so-called replacement. As Pru saw back in Hong Kong, these days Todd really isn't trying to keep a low profile. At least, not compared to before. (Before the world went crazy-wrong and left Pru out of the loop when it comes to what the hell is going on.)

_"Wow, you've got some balls."_ Todd is all smirks and smiles when he contacts her and Pru is instantly reminded why she kept trying to beat the shit out of him back when he was Talia's little pet. It's just as well they're not doing this in person—she's not sure she could stop herself from trying again, and she honestly needs his help. _"Wanting to talk Bats with me."_

"I just need a location," Pru grits out, glaring at his stupid face. She swears he's worse now than he ever was before. Ugh, the only other person who's ever been able to piss her off this fast is Owens, and even then that's only when he was being a supercilious ass. "Or a means of contact. I know you have it."

_"Yeah, no. Bats do their thing, I do mine. We don't really talk anymore—Batman has zombie issues."_ She knows Todd's bullshitting her because that's what he _always_ does.

"I know you have it," she soldiers on, "because there's no reason for you to contact me about what _I_ know if you can't get back to him with it." And isn't she proud of herself, setting it up so that Todd thinks that _he's_ coming to _her_ for info. She'd never have been able to swing that one a year ago, back before Red and his lessons about human nature and the art of subtle trickery. "You're going to tell me what I want because you have to know that if you don't, I'll follow you to him and that'll just be embarrassing for everyone involved."

He switches gears at that. Gives Pru a long, calculating look through the camera. _"If you know so much, why don't you just go to him direct? What d'you need me for?"_

Pru prevaricates. "My sources are no good when it comes to him." Not exactly a lie—her sources were Lonnie Machin and Stephanie Brown and Tam Fox. Oracle when she got really desperate. God only knows where Lonnie is now, Brown was a wash, Oracle's not in play, and Fox is now just some kid who's probably never even met Red under any of his names. "Please, Hood. I need this."

_"...you're a bit normal for his interests right now. Still, if you really want to try and take on Red Robin..."_ Todd shrugs.

"I'm not any more normal than the rest of you Bats, these days." Because normal people don't have memories of an entire different universe or timeline or whatever in their heads, just like normal people don't come back from the dead.

_"Hey, I'm no Bat—don't make me regret dealing with you,"_ Todd snaps, more stupid posturing, but he's not trying as hard now. _"Try Lex Towers in New York. Can't be sure he'll be there, but you're welcome to try. Now, what about what I asked for? Word is you can put a name to the face."_

Pru takes a deep breath. Holds it. Hopes that she's still right about this (she has to be, sure there are differences, but the basics haven't changed so far, why should they now), and tells him. "Her name is Cassie Sandsmark, and she _is_ Wonder Girl."

* * *

She doesn't go straight to Red or call him out. Now that she has him in her sights, Red's going to have a hard time slipping away from Pru again, and if there's anything she's learned from this whole ridiculous affair, it's that in this fucked-up alternate timeline or whatever, people are more likely than ever to do really stupid, amature things. Thus, it's best to proceed with caution.

Plus, Pru's tired of being the brawn. It's high time she took her vast store of knowledge and experience and became the brain—look how well that worked with Todd, after all.

Cracking her knuckles, Pru pulls the laptop closer and opens a program. Totally worth it to pass that thumb drive of stuff about ancient evil she that got off the League's servers on to Todd in exchange for some bad-ass encryption and firewall shit. She may not have the techno know-how, but with the right tools, it shouldn't really matter.

Leaning forward, Prudence starts typing.

> `Hello, Tim.`
> 
> `RedBird: Who is this? You shouldn't be able to access this computer.`
> 
> `That's not what you should be asking.`
> 
> `RedBird: What should I be asking?`
> 
> `How I can help you.`
> 
> `RedBird: I don't think so. Who is this?`
> 
> `Really, Red, you need my help. I mean, I bet you don't even know the low-down on Superboy's dads and shit.`
> 
> `As for who I am, well. `
> 
> `You can call me Oracle.`

  
Hey. It's not like Gordon's even using the name anymore. 


End file.
